Protesters: Ukraine's leader must defend nation at summit
Source: Associated Press
By YURAS KARMANAU an hour ago
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Several thousand people rallied Sunday in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv to demand that the president defend the country’s interests in this week’s summit with Russia, Germany and France on ending the war in eastern Ukraine.
Many Ukrainians are concerned that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a political novice, could be out-maneuvered by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the summit on Monday in Paris.
Zelenskiy is eager to make progress on ending the war with Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, where fighting has killed some 14,000 people since 2014. Russia wants to use the summit to increase pressure on Zelenskiy to fulfill the 2015 Minsk peace accord, which gives the rebel-held regions more autonomy in exchange for ending the fighting.
Germany and France helped to broker that 2015 deal, but it has been repeatedly ignored.
Read more: https://apnews.com/5221dd58f1a5421ba7a9c2a6fad856c0
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Presidential spokeswoman Yulia Mendel said Zelenskiy would make tough demands at Monday’s summit.
“The first three steps that President Zelensky will take at a meeting in Paris: the terms and conditions of the return of captured Ukrainians; a real, not fake, ceasefire; and, of course, the withdrawal of foreign troops and bandit formations from the territory of Donbass,” Mendel wrote on Facebook, using a term for Ukraine’s eastern regions.
Local elections may be held after border control is returned and “when there are no foreign troops and illegal armed groups” in the area, she wrote.
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